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 Posted: Sun Mar 04, 2018 10:14 am Post subject: SUSPECT BOKO HARAM NOW HEADS SECURITY AGENCY IN BENUE STATE |
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☆☆☆STARMANIA NEWS☆☆☆
Raising unanswerable questions, Nigerians were treated
to a theatre of the absurd when the police high
command raised the alarm that a self-confessed kingpin
of the Boko Haram Islamist sect, which held the nation
by the jugular, on September 25, 2011 had
surreptitiously slipped out of custody.
Rather alarming, the same man has re emerged and is
currently the head of Benue State local security agency
called Livestock Guards.
His arrest and escape from police custody
While initially keeping the identity of the agency under
wraps, the police had said it officially handed over the
suspect, Alhaji Ali Teshaku, to a sister security agency
via a memo by the then Inspector General of police,
Hafiz Ringim, dated July 7, 2011. The police further
claimed that the action was based on a formal letter
from the unnamed sister agency dated June 27, 2011,
which requested release of the suspect to it.
Olusola Amore, the Force Public Relations Officer at the
time, explained that the IGP acceded to the request in
the spirit of intelligence sharing as is customary in
security circles, but was quick to add that the identity
of the sister agency concerned would not be given in
the national interest.
However, fingers were pointed at the direction of the
Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA), whose erstwhile
chief, Major General Babagana Munguno (retd), the
incumbent National Security Adviser (NSA), reportedly
made the request and eventually took over custody of
Teshaku from the police. But all the military intelligence
chiefs at the time denied having anything to do with the
suspect.
In a curious twist of events, the DIA eventually admitted
taking custody of the suspect from the police after
writing a formal request, but claimed it encountered
several obstacles in the process, which were
surmounted with the intervention of a former NSA, late
General Owoye Azazi, who prevailed on Ringim to
release the suspected terrorist kingpin to Monguno.
Interestingly, Teshaku was said to have opened up on
the activities of Boko Haram to the DIA and claimed to
have revealed same to the police authorities. Reports
further indicated that both the then NSA and Chief of
Defence Staff [CDS] were notified by the DIA on its
encounter with the suspect before he was returned to
police custody.
But Nigerians were bemused shortly thereafter, when
the DIA reportedly asked for the suspect to be released
to it a second time for further investigation, but was
allegedly turned down. It was, indeed, a high drama as
the police authorities vehemently denied the allegation
that Teshaku had been returned to its custody after he
was handed over, talk less of receiving a second request
for his release to the DIA.
As Expected, the claims, counter claims and denials
between the security agencies were further
compounded by reports of the DIA’s eventual admission
of taking custody of the suspect at a point in time from
the police, and it became a source of concern and
embarrassment to the presidency, which ordered a
probe into the incident.
Nothing was heard since then about him besides a joint
press conference held at the Defence Headquarters to
douse public suspicion of mutual distrust and rivalry
amongst security agencies. While Hafiz Ringim, the IGP
at the time declined comments on the issue when
contacted recently on telephone, former police
spokesman, Olusola Amore, a retired commissioner of
police, gave an insight into the squabble between the
police and DIA.
“Let me flashback because I can actually remember now
since you said it was that issue that led to conflict
between us and the DIA. I know the DSS were also
involved, but instead of them handing over the suspect
back to us, all we saw was the suspect making some
allegations against the police. And we said well, we still
believe that the suspect would be returned to us
because we transferred the suspect in the spirit of
inter-agency collaboration. So, there is no way they
would release the suspect without returning the suspect
to the police. That was the conflict.
The suspect was arrested by the police in connection
with Boko Haram and handed over to the DIA. I think it
was the DIA because I was later invited for a joint
conference at the Defence Headquarters and the
Defence Intelligence Agency, all of us were there. I just
sat there, but I didn’t talk. But I said at that meeting
that we still believed the suspect is with the DIA, and
would be handed over to us. In fact, I didn’t want to go
but the DIA was boxed into a corner and they wanted a
face-saving press conference. So they wanted the PROs
of all security organizations to be there. Sincerely, I
didn’t want to go but later, they got in touch with
Ringim (IGP); so Ringim said I should go but shouldn’t
say a word there. So I attended”, Amore said last week
in a telephone chat.
Re-emergence after seven years
Seven years after, the dust over the suspect’s
whereabouts seemed to have settled. But a mention of
the suspect’s name during an interview last month with
Garus Gololo, coordinator of the Miyetti Allah Cattle
Breeders Association of Nigeria (MACBAN) triggered an
alarm in the reporter’s memory. Gololo had alleged that
Ali Teshaku, presently the commander of the Livestock
Guards in Benue State, an outfit created by the state
government with the enactment of its anti-open grazing
law, was a suspected Boko Haram leader engaged to
terrorize Fulani herders and evict them from the state.
Tahav Agerzua, Special Adviser to Governor Samuel
Ortom on Media and ICT, however, debunked the
allegation. “This matter you are pursuing is not
necessary at this time. After all, we inherited him from
the previous government and the man has been granted
amnesty. This is a security issue, but if you want further
explanation, you can come over and I will arrange for
you to talk to the security people”, he said on telephone
when contacted on the issue.
His response fired the reporter’s zeal to probe into the
identity of Ali Teshaku, with a view to ascertaining if he
was indeed, the suspected Boko Haram leader at the
centre of a conflict between the police and the DIA
some years ago. The investigation paid off as Saturday
Sun got a lead to unmask him. Teshaku, in a telephone
interview, confirmed that he was the subject of
controversy between the two security agencies. He also
confirmed that he was released from detention by the
DIA after probing into his background and role in the
Boko Haram saga.
“If you are in this country and you are an unknown
person or from a poor family, these politicians or the
security, they can use you and dump you. On this
issue, the DIA is made up of serious and experienced
people. When they dug into my role and found out
what happened between me and the Nigerian security,
they knew that I was supposed to be rewarded”, he
said.
Two former security goons, however, confirmed in
separate encounters with Saturday Sun that Teshaku
was at a time on security radar as a suspected
henchman of Boko Haram. But the soft-spoken Benue
State-born man says his engagement by a former
Deputy Inspector General of Police (Operations), Mike
Zuokumor, as coordinator of a Civilian Joint Task Force
(CJTF) in the state as part of measures to curtail the
incessant herdsmen/farmers clashes, was an indication
that he was not a devil as was being painted by the
police authorities.
Connection with Boko Haram hierarchy
But Zuokumor, who does not want to be drawn into the
controversy on Teshaku’s suspected role in the Boko
Haram insurgency, explained why he engaged him as
head of the CJTF in Benue. “Teshaku is a Tiv man, but a
Muslim; the bulk of herdsmen are Muslims and he had
something in common with them. He also had
something in common with the Tiv farmers. Teshaku
was instrumental to the signing of a peace accord. He
was made chairman of a committee and had a Fulani
deputy. Teshaku did not go to school, but had native
intelligence. He was the one that pointed at who is who
during the farmers/herdsmen crisis at the time I was
DIG Operations”.
Top security sources confided in Saturday Sun that
Teshaku had an awesome influence on senior
commanders of the Boko Haram sect at the height of its
devastating attacks during the previous administration,
and indeed, met ex-president Goodluck Jonathan, on
one occasion in his bid to proffer a solution to the
insurgency.
At the meeting which sources said held in the wee
hours of the fateful day at the Maitama, Abuja residence
of a traditional ruler and Jonathan’s childhood friend,
King Amatele Jonny Turner, Obigbo Mikimiki of Opume
Kingdom, Bayelsa State, Teshaku was masked and taken
to the venue by a retired Deputy Inspector General of
Police who, at that time, was the commissioner of
police at the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) police
command, in company with Wilson Inalegwu, then an
Assistant Commissioner of Police in charge of
operations at the command.
It was learnt that after listening to Teshaku, who
allegedly offered to persuade top commanders of the
Boko Haram including those in Niger, Cameroon and
Chad to converge on Maiduguri for a peace meeting as
a prelude to ceasing the attacks, he was said to have
been mobilized in United States of America, US Dollars,
and succeeded in arranging a meeting of the sect
commanders at the Borno State capital. While there,
they were said to have clashed with the military during
which some of them were killed, and a few were
arrested.
Teshaku was also said to have arranged clandestine
meetings between the authorities and Boko Haram
commanders in Abuja, leading to two agreements in
2012 in which the insurgents indicated their willingness
for a truce. But sources said factional leader of the sect,
Abubakar Shekau, refused to attend the Abuja meetings,
but opted to engage a former Minister of Niger Delta
Affairs, Godsday Orubebe in Dubai, United Arab
Emirate.
It could not be ascertained at press time whether the
meeting held. But most of the meetings between the
authorities and the Boko Haram elements in Abuja were
said to have been presided over by a former Minister of
Police Affairs, Navy Captain Caleb Olubolade (retd).
When the hunt for him intensified, Mamman Nur, the
suspected mastermind of the United Nations (UN)
House bombing in Abuja was said to have also
contacted Ali Teshaku, when he learnt of a peace move,
and had sought reprieve from the authorities through a
former commissioner of police in the FCT, who had
been promoted an Assistant Inspector General of Police
(AIG).
A source hinted that the police chief, now retired,
linked Teshaku to Peter Gana, a retired Deputy
Inspector General of Police in charge of the Force
Criminal Investigation Department (FCID). Eventually,
Teshaku and Nur met the DIG, who the source said
took them to the office of the NSA.
Was Teshaku a kingpin of Boko Haram as alleged by the
police, a repentant opportunist who had wanted to
capitalize on the crippling insurgency to fester his nest
during Jonathan’s administration, or a security mole?
Only the security agencies can provide answers to these
posers. |
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